Locked out: Oil spill victims try to shame BP into paying compensation to fishermen one year on from Deepwater disaster

But the oyster catchers, shrimp farmers and fishermen whose livelihoods were ruined by the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico were yesterday barred from BP’s annual general meeting.

As the shutters came down over entry points to the Excel Centre in East London, the simmering anger among protesters erupted.

Shrimp farmer Diane Wilson from Texas daubed herself with oil as part of a protest outside the conference centre

She said that corporate bosses had to be made responsible and Mr Hayward should face manslaughter charges

Scuffles broke out between environmental campaigners and police and security guards blocking their way.

Among the rag-tag group of protesters
was Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper from the Texas Gulf
coast, who daubed black paint over her face and hands to reflect the
impact of the oil slick on her community.

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But her emotions boiled over and she was arrested and taken to Forest Gate police station for questioning.

Before she was hauled away, the Texan
shouted: ‘I am here to call BP to account for its actions in the Gulf –
for the oil spill, the lies, the cover-ups, the skimping on safety, the
deaths, the non-existent documents and the swinging door with
regulators.

Security guards protect the entrance to the meeting at the Excel centre in London's Docklands

Protesters tried to storm their way into the Excel centre in East London

‘I articulate the anger of thousands
of Gulf coast residents whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed
while the BP board continues to prosper.’

The AGM was BP’s first since 11
workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded almost
exactly a year ago, unleashing a huge oil spill.

As the meeting began,
Antonia Juhasz, a respected author who wrote Black Tide, one of the
first books to examine the Gulf spill, tried to read a statement from
Keith Jones, whose son Gordon died on the rig.

‘You were rolling the dice with my
son’s life and you lost,’ the statement said. ‘And after Gordon was
dead, after his family was destroyed forever, none of you, not a single
one, could find the time to do so much as send a sympathy card.

‘A telephone call or a letter from
one of you would have meant something to us. It would have told us that
you regretted what happened to our Gordon.’

As she read the statement she was booed, heckled and given a slow hand-clap by BP shareholders.

In response to Miss Juhasz’s comments, BP chief executive Bob Dudley read out the names of the 11 dead men.

He said nothing could be done to
bring the men back and the accident had ‘shocked and saddened us all’.
Mr Dudley said BP would do everything it could to make sure a similar
accident did not happen again.

Miss Juhasz’s intervention wasn’t the only interruption to proceedings. A group of ten campaigners had also evaded guards.

However, they were ejected when they
stood up to reveal the slogan ‘No tar sands’ written on their T-shirts.
The group was protesting at BP’s decision to move into Alberta, Canada,
to exploit ‘tar-sand’ oil, which campaigners say leaves a heavy carbon
footprint.

Louisiana oyster catcher Byron
Encalade, 56, said being refused entry into the meeting was proof that
BP had forgotten about his ‘suffering community’.

Speaking outside, he said: ‘Our
community and our workforce is in trouble. It could take up to ten years
for the fish stocks in our region to return.

‘I always try to believe the best in people but this sort of behaviour makes me see only the worst in people.

‘I wanted to tell the shareholders
that we have not seen any of the $20billion that had been promised to
the people of the Gulf. They made a commitment but never sent the
cheque.’

The protesters were joined by British environmental campaigners and trade union members.

BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg described the protests as a ‘disturbance’.

He apologised to the audience, admitting that some people had ‘strong emotions’.

Last night, BP said: ‘We have a
responsibility to run an orderly meeting that allows our shareholders to
vote on resolutions and engage with the board.

‘If we believe allowing individuals in may put this at risk we are in our rights to refuse access.’

Union workers protested outside the conference over a dispute at a biofuels plant near Hull

Wildlife was badly affected by the oil spill in turn devastating fishing industries along the coast